1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of registering the location of a mobile-communication system and a device therefore, and particularly relates to a method of registering the location of a mobile station in a mobile-communication system and a device therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 shows example operation sequences of a location-registration method used for a known mobile-communication system. In FIG. 1, a location-registration request transmitted from a mobile station 1 arrives at a visitor-location register (VLR) 4 via a radio-network controller (RNC) 2 and a mobile-switching center (MSC) 3. Hereinafter, the term “visitor” indicates an in-area subscriber.
The VLR 4 determines whether or not the above-described location registration can be performed. If the location registration is allowed, the VLR 4 performs the location registration and notifies the mobile station 1 that the location registration is finished. If the location registration is not permitted, the VLR 4 notifies the mobile station 1 that it is difficult to register the location.
In the known mobile-communication system, the number of in-area subscribers registering the locations of mobile stations depends on the capacity of the VLR functioning as a visited-network-location-registration database, and regulation synchronized with call processing is not performed when the location registration is performed.
Further, according to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 10-285276, regulation processing is performed for each of relating exchanges based on the result of a comparison of the total of accesses to a home memory storing information about the location and communication status of a mover and traffic information relating to the call-processing capability of the home memory.
When the location registration performed for originating calls and/or incoming calls made by in-area subscribers concentrates during a predetermined time period, the capacity of an exchange including the MSC, the RNC, etc. is exceeded, so that it may become difficult to make another originating call and/or the exchange failure may occur.
Further, the in-area location of a subscriber basically depends on the intensity of a transmitted radio wave and the movement of a person, so that subscribers often concentrate in a predetermined area. In that case, the capacity of a base-transceiver station (BTS) and/or the RNC is exceeded, so that it becomes difficult to make an originating call.
Further, cell information managed by an exchange including the known MSC, RNC, etc. is not managed by the VLR which is a higher-order step due to an insufficient memory capacity.